How Was This Table Finished?

[Matthew Hutchinson477]

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Okay so I know the top was dimensioned with a scrub plane or a jack plane taking deep cuts, and I'm not concerned with what finish was used. I saw this piece at a nice hotel in Pennsylvania and thought it neat. But a freshly scrub/jack planed surface would have sharper peaks between the tracks, right? So did they lightly sand it after planing to smooth over the sharp, jagged plane tracks? Or am I missing something?

I do believe it's a pretty old piece so maybe just age and hard use combined with a more recent refinish but even that doesn't seem plausible because there aren't any dings or gouges or deep scratches.

What say you, senators of Rome?

[Art Mann]

The appearance looks to me like "hand scraped" hardwood flooring. Its the latest craze. I think what you are looking at is a newly manufactured table that has been processed made to look that way.

[Matthew Hutchinson477]

While I can't disprove that, this table is at the Hershey Hotel in Hershey, PA and the whole place is pretty old. I assumed everything in the place was from when the hotel was first completed back in the 30's but that could be false. I have seen the modern "hand scraped" finish on a lot of furniture, though, and that is what it most closely resembles. How exactly is that done?

[Jamie Buxton]

I too think it might be modern, done with power tools. It would take a very dull hand plane, pushed by a very very strong person, to make those big tear-out gouges. My guess is that somebody made the basic surface with a power plane, with the knives ground to a curve instead of straight. Then the surface was sanded to knock down leftover splinters, and to flatten the peaks between the plane strokes.

The table as a whole looks a bit odd. The table top is deliberately crude and rustic. But the aprons of the table have finely-made beads, and the turned spiral legs are well-made too. It almost look like the table was completely built, and later remodeled to have that "hand-scraped" look on top.

[John Vernier]

I think it's possible the table dates to the '30s like you suggested. Faux rustic furniture had a certain popularity at the time. I saw a lot of it when I lived in Los Angeles, part of the Spanish colonial revival / southwest rustic craze which followed the craftsman era. Probably a lot of it kicking around Adirondack and Catskill camps as well.

You can plow surprisingly deep gouges with a well-sharpened cambered blade. It's much easier to push than a straight-edged blade of the same width. And the tearout happens even with a sharp blade, because you are cutting and levering such massive chips. I've seen this often enough while thicknessing boards by hand. Nowadays you can buy cambered cutters for electric hand planers. I think Festool sells one for their planer. I think this table was sanded after the rough planing, which has softened the peaks of the cuts considerably.